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that philosophy which, as he said, was not mere
speculation but life. And he found in Islam the
same practical philosophy of life perfected.
In fact Nizamat Jung, in a way, attributed
the marvellous progress that the West has made
in the various branches of human activity to the
fact that its ethical standards have been high in
the past, and, essentially the same as those of
Islam. It was an article of faith with him that
Moslems had only to revert to those standards in
order to become as progressive as before, and he
remained firm in his conviction that righteous
conduct is the chief object of religion and philo-
sophy, and that mere outward ritual without the
true spirit of religion was useless/'
As a traveller from Greece to Arabia, Sir
Nizamat could say with truth :
'* Nor in the philosophic mind,
Nor in the poet's art
Could I that secret solace find
Which soothes the troubled heart.
But in the spirit of Islam,
Which could lost faiths redeefti,
I found the * soul's marmoreal calm/
Of Plato's cherished dream."
To a mind so trained, all that concerned man's
life was of the deepest interest, but he looked at
things from his own detached point of view so as
to .be able to judge of their inter-relations and
consequences more in accordance with the natu-
ral principles underlying them than from their